Sunday, May 04, 2008

chinese: DA AN RD/ XIN YI RD STREET VENDORS




DA AN ROAD & XIN YI ROAD STREET VENDORS

Jimmy Ice Tea
(02) 2754-5192

Lao Zhou Dao Xiao Mien
Jien Bao (dumplings)

at intersection of Da An Road and Xin Yi Road

11:30 AM - 11:30 PM
$

Visit reviewed: 4/7/2008

At one corner of the bustling intersection of Da An Road and Xin Yi Road, there is a busy alley of street vendors of knife cut noodles (or dao xiao mien), dumplings, beef noodle soup, boba milk tea and lots of other small eats.



Spotting a small cart on the main corner, my friend tells me about how "yo ming" or famous Jimmy is. There are few people waiting before us and only two workers who put together the tea and place it on the metal shaking machines. You can also adjust the level of sweetness and ice. The boba or tapioca pearls are fat and the tea is sweet, but overall, I still prefer the QQ mini boba and taste of boba milk tea (NT$35) of 50 Lan.



They have lots of other options on their to-go menu in Chinese and apparently they deliver with a certain minimum order.



There are people sitting at tables along the sidewalk, slurping their bowls of noodles and soup, while the vendors are busy making their food.



Spotting a man making fresh noodles, I decide to try the dao xiao mien- opting for the ja jiang mien (or shredded pork noodles) (NT$75 for small bowl) to go.



When I get home, the cucumber has become a bit soggy while the noodles have retained their chewiness. However, the sauce of the ja jien noodles is a bit bland and doesn't have enough thickness and saltiness to go with the density and volume of the noodles. I wonder if the beef noodle soup would have been better.



A few weeks later, while driving by the intersection, I see a long line of men at another dao xiao mien vendor a few doors down (past Lao Zhou) and make a mental note to try that place the next time instead. Or go back to the Shan Xi Dao Xiao Mien with the really great broth and noodles.

Walking back towards the corner, I spot freshly made dumplings and get 5 jien bao for NT$7 each of the meat and vegetable ones, pan fried though they also have steamed. These taste better than the noodles, though they are not as crispy at the bottom as I would have liked.





Overall, a neat street corner to explore though, but I didn't taste anything memorable that I'd crave on another day.

9 comments:

Luca and Sabrina said...

Hi hungry girl,
Taipei is too much far away from Bologna(Italy), but we think your blog's very odd and fabulous. We like to find out food from other countries. Come and see our blog if you want
saporidivini.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

yay! i loove street vendors! thanks for the awesome post! :)

keep 'em coming! ~*~

Anonymous said...

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_2035024.php

not related to this post but I thought you'd be interested to read. I'm especially excited about the 85C opening in the plaza. :D

joanh said...

luca&sabrina: thanks for visiting!

kathybean: thanks for reading.. i'll try and do more street vendors for you.

tiffany: thanks for the heads up!! that's pretty awesome. i'll have to check it out when i'm back in so cal. hopefully the quality of the 85c will be the same, though i'm sure it'll be much more expensive there.

Rose said...

Jimmy's is the ONLY place i get zhenzhu naicha anymore (pearl milk tea) in Taipei. However, you have to order it in a very specific way:

zhenzhu naicha
add coffee pieces (ka fei dong)
half milk (ban nai)
small sugar (xiao tang)
no ice (qu bing)

i swear order this next time and you won't be dissappointed!

T.M.P. said...

Hey I was in Taipei once (Ximendin) and I had this awesome street vendor food, where they pour batter on the grill, kind of chop it a bit while rotating it and add an egg at the end. I have looked everywhere for this online and cant find it. Do you know what it's called? Thanks. (p.s. its not JianBing but something close)

Anonymous said...

I live right across the street. I'm craving for some of the dumplings right now.

lostandconfused said...

Finally! A blog about Taiwanese food! I started drooling when I was looking at the pics. Ah, I can't wait to go back and check out all these places in Taipei.

joanh said...

rose: that is SUPER specific! they should call it "the rose" so i can order that. :)

timbo: is it spring onion pancake or green onion pancake? or "zhong yong bing"? try googling that and let me know! :)

joe: what's the best vendor there?

peggy: thanks! hope to hear from you again if you see stuff that makes you drool

:)